The Susan G. Komen for the Cure denied funding for breast cancer screenings to Planned Parenthood today, in an anti-abortion frenzy designed to hurt the women’s health provider. The effect was a glancing blow. In the past 24 hours, 6,000 donors have delivered $400,000 to Planned Parenthood, almost half of the annual donation from Susan G. Komen. Obviously, Komen provided an annual donation, and this is a one-time outpouring in reaction. So it will hurt Planned Parenthood. But they also gained a lot of allies and awareness from this exchange.

Moreover, Susan G. Komen is hearing frustration from their own board members:

Ann Hogan is the board president for Susan G. Komen for the Cure Connecticut. When I gave her a call this afternoon, to discuss the new policy that will bar her group from contracting with Planned Parenthood, she had one word for her reaction: Frustrated.

“We are funding [Planned Parenthood] and we are absolutely frustrated by this,” she says. And when I ask her to explain her frustration, she says it mostly has to do with people like me.

“The frustration is the time we’re spending right now on these types of calls,” she says. “I would love for you to call me in June. I would love for you to say Connecticut is doing an amazing job with Race for the Cure, and how can we get the work out. I’m a volunteer. This isn’t my job, this is my passion…so it’s frustrating we’re spending our time like this.”

Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) pulled her support of Susan G. Komen over this episode. And I’m sure that’s just the beginning. Wait until the corporate sponsors that partner with Susan G. Komen hear from thousands of angry customers.

Oh, and that residual benefit that Susan G. Komen would get from the anti-choice community? Yeah, that hasn’t materialized:

Lou Engle’s Bound4Life, which pushed LifeWay bookstores to stop selling Komen’s “Pink Bible,” commended Komen but like [Family Research Council president Tony] Perkins, asked the group to go even farther to please the far-right by abandoning their support of stem cell research.

You give the theocratic right an inch and they want to take a mile. It happens every time.